Chew Toys and Other Buried Treasure
by MACRA
Summary: Naga has taken something of Asami's


Author's Note: Submission for Round 3 of the Pro-Bending Circuit. Write a story about a missing item.

Words (excluding Author's note) = 1157

Prompts used: (dialogue) "It's always the last place you look", (smell) sweat

Additional bonus: Include your element (water)

"Well, they're not in the workshop, the study, or our bedroom." Asami frowned and placed her hands on her hips.

"Yeah, about that." Korra shifted from foot to foot. Asami looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "Guess who just came in with muddy paws."

Now Asami raised both eyebrows. "I sincerely hope you mean Naga."

"Yes, Miss Smarty-pants. I mean Naga. I'm afraid she might have buried them in the yard. I'm really sorry." She glowered at Naga. The big polar-bear dog whimpered and lay down.

"Why would she have taken them in the first place?

Korra drummed her fingers together and wouldn't look at her in the face. "Because of the … thing. That I got you for your birthday?"

"You know it's adorable that you're so embarrassed about that."

Korra stuck her tongue out at Asami before continuing, "I think she might have mistaken it for a chew toy."

Asami sighed. "Of course she did. Well, it's not the end of the world." Asami frowned thoughtfully. "I could always get the wire strippers and…"

"Before you do that, I have an idea," Korra said. She headed toward the kitchen door.

Asami followed her. "You've got an idea where she buried it? Because that is a really big yard, otherwise."

Korra shook her head. "I'm going to try echo location. Lin's been teaching me a lot about the technique."

Asami looked skeptical. "They're kind of small. Are you sure it will work?"

"Sure, no problem." Korra took a deep breath, and then stomped hard on the ground. As the echoes came back to her, her jaw dropped. "Oh."

"You can't find it?"

Korra rubbed the back of her head. "Well, it's not that exactly. The problem is that I found too many things buried in the yard."

Asami's eyes got wide. "How many?"

"I-lost-count-after-fourteen many?" She winced.

Asami stared at her, then sighed. "I'll go get a shovel."

###

Korra pulled a squeaky pentapus out of the latest hole and brushed it off. Asami frowned as she tried to remember if she had seen that one before. "How many chew toys have you given Naga?"

Korra held up her hands "I swear, it wasn't this many."

Asami sighed. "I realize that. That wasn't what I meant. I was just hoping that it isn't as many as I've given her." Both of them glanced over at Naga. The polar bear dog was currently worrying the third toy they had unearthed, a big purple fluff ball with google-eyes.

"We should probably coordinate this sort of thing better," Korra said.

###

Korra mopped her brow. "Can I _please_ use Earthbending for this?"

Asami took the shovel back and took her turn digging at the place Korra had marked. "The one you tried that on looks like a bomb crater. This is tidier."

"It's also sweatier."

Asami grunted as she scooped out another spadeful of earth. "Korra, I am already going to owe the gardener a really big bonus for what it's going to take to set this right. Besides, ladies don't sweat. They glisten."

Korra rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm 'glistening' enough that I will need another shower before I am seen in polite society. And no offence, but I can tell you need one too." She waved her hand back and forth in front of her nose. "Although, come to think of it..." Asami looked up, and saw Korra giving her a look. "Both of us needing showers has definite possibilities."

Asami sighed regretfully. "Before you get too frisky, I'm already running late. I'm going to have to take a rain-check on the 'possibilities.'"

###

"OK. The echo on this one is way too big to be them, but I'm really curious," Korra said. She started digging a new hole. She got down about a foot when there was a clink of metal on glass. Korra got on her hands and knees and cleared the dirt away with her hands. "Huh. Well, I don't think this is Naga's doing. It looks like a jar." She pulled it out of the hole and brushed at it. "Kind of hard to tell what's inside."

"Don't open that!" Asami yelled.

Korra's hand hovered over the lid and she stared at Asami. "Ooookay. Why?"

Asami felt her cheeks grow hot. "I think it might be from when I tried making homemade kimchi. It's traditional to bury it. I thought I'd got all the jars, but it looks like I miscounted."

Korra's brow furrowed. "I don't remember this at all."

"It was before you moved in." Asami bit her lip. "Actually, it was before we met. Quite a bit before, to be honest."

"How much before?"

Asami drew in a breath through her teeth before answering. "I think I was thirteen at the time?"

Korra stared at her some more before setting the container down with great care. "Backing away from the jar of cabbagey death right now."

###

"So the current score," Korra said, "is nine chew toys, five bones, three unmatched shoes, and one cooking project turned science experiment."

"And we still haven't found them. And this is last echo you spotted under the lawn." Asami looked on frowning as Korra started to dig.

"Well, you know what they say," Korra said as she worked "It's always in the last place you look."

"I refuse to comment on the logical deficiencies of that saying, because I know you're only repeating it to provoke me."

Korra looked up and grinned at her. "And it's working." Korra turned over more dirt. "It is seriously annoying though. I mean if they're down here, why did it have to be the very last one? What are the odds?"

"One in nineteen, actually," Asami said, giving Korra a crooked smile.

Korra's brow furrowed for a moment before she let out a sheepish laugh. "Don't baffle me with your fiendish science-talk when I'm bemoaning cosmic injustice" She looked in the hole. "I think I've got something."

Asami stood at her shoulder. "Is it them?"

"It's them!" She held up Asami's car keys by the new stuffed toy fob that had caught Naga's attention. It was a turtle-duck wearing racing goggles, with the words "I love you" stitched in the shell. "Let me wash the dirt off." Korra bent water out of her hip flask and suspended the key-chain in a pulsating globe of water, which got cloudy as the dirt was scrubbed off. She then released it and bent the excess water out of the fabric. She presented them to Asami with a bow. "Milady."

"Thank you," Asami said, smiling. "Looks as good as new. And I don't have to hotwire my own car. Now, I am terribly late, so if you'll excuse me, Precious."

"Before you go, Sweetest." Korra stepped forward and put her arms around Asami's neck. She leaned in close and said, "Seriously, you should bathe and change before you go into work."


End file.
